Let Me Show You How
by Freakin-little
Summary: "That's the thing, living with Fred and George. You start to believe anything is possible if you've got enough nerve." My little sister may be deaf, but if living with her for so long has taught me anything, it's how to just feel everything.But I'm afraid she's about to feel herself right into the next great wizarding war. She lost her hearing the first time round. What's next?


**I own nothing and this is all a horrible twisting of J.K Rowling's world. **

* * *

It was certainly one of the most rowdiest mornings she'd seen in awhile. There were only three of eight kids living in the house now and while her grandmother was certainly a handful on her best day, she'd never quite shaken the house like someone just had. Slowly rising from her bed she stretched her arms and breathed in deep, smelling coffee and bacon coming from downstairs already and felt a tiny noise vibrate from the back of her throat.

She slid her feet onto the wood floors and wiggled her toes before standing, tugging on the waistband of the grey sweatpants that tried to slip down her legs. She flipped the waist over a few times and scratched the back of her head as she twisted her doorknob and headed down the hall to the stairs, feeling the vibrations of the life downstairs through the floorboards. She felt the boards give ever so slightly under her feet and rolled her eyes. She kept telling her dad to change them, they were older than he was and no one wanted creaky floorboards, but he insisted on them. It was why her siblings never managed to successfully sneak down the stairs for a midnight snack.

When she rounded the corner into the kitchen she saw her entire family, or most of it, rather, standing around the kitchen table. Their mouths were moving a mile a minute each and shoving news papers around like they were playing a rousing game of hot potato.

Her dad was standing with his back to her at the stove, flipping pancakes and watching over the greasy sizzling bacon in the pan and buttering toast as it popped up and scrambling eggs and despite being entirely focused not burning breakfast, which to be honest he'd probably do no matter how much he concentrated on it, he, like always, seemed to sense her enter the room and turned to look at her over his broad shoulder and smiled and she watched him say hello.

She gave him a dimpled smile in response and waved a hand, wiggling her fingers and moved to sit on the counter beside him, taking over the eggs and attacking them with the spatula. He rolled his eyes and moved to the fridge to grab the juice and waved a hand at the cupboard as she grabbed the glasses. His hands moved in front of him;

_I can cook, Hallie. _

She grinned and shook her head.

_"No you can't."_

He huffed and puffed in offense but she could see him hiding a smile of his own. She kicked her legs and brushed her toes against the chair in front of her. Ben turned to look over his shoulder, mouth filled with toast and gave her a grin twice as dimply as her own. She raised her eyebrows. She often wondered if he was part snake; no human could unhinge their jaw for food like that.

Sophia's delicately ringed hand came out of nowhere and smacked the back of his head and there was a certain tone of disgust on her face.

_Chew first! _

Ben rolled his big blue eyes and affectionately squeezed Hallie's knee before swallowing a large mouthful of bread. Sophia made a face and muttered something and Hallie leaned forward, tilting her head, but couldn't catch sight of her lips and huffed herself.

Lucy breezed into the room, all light red hair and flushed cheeks, pile of textbooks under her arms. She placed them gently on the counter next to Hallie and gave her a tight hug and Hallie sputtered on the apple juice her dad had gotten her before Lucy plopped down into a chair next to Sophie who turned to talk to her and Hallie slumped against the cupboards, unable to see her sister's lips.

Ben hunched over his plate and shoved some more toast into his mouth before raising his hands and turning to look at their dad, his big eyes so pleading Hallie laughed, covering her mouth.

_Food please! _

Their dad turned and placed a hand on his hip and appraised his son quite unsympathetically.

_Your sister's the one with the eggs. Bug her. _

Hallie pouted and Ben wrapped one of his overly large hands around her tiny little ankle and tugged. He jutted out his bottom lip and gave her puppy eyes and Hallie rolled her eyes, stirring the eggs with the spatula.

_"Get off me, Ben."_

_Please! _

_"I'm cooking!"_

_Feed the hungry! _

_"Bug someone else."_

_Eggs! _

Ben tugged her ankle petulantly and Hallie slid partly down the counter top with a yelp. She made a noise in her throat and threw the egg covered spatula at his forehead so he retracted his hand and rubbed the red mark there with a glower.

_"Eggs." _

Hallie looked up from her stare-down with a grumbling Ben when she felt the floor thump under her toes as they skimmed the kitchen tiles. Her eldest sibling, Jenna, swooped into the room, two kids on her arms and briefcase slung over her shoulder. She ducked and kissed Hallie on the cheek and dropped her youngest, Austin who was three, onto a kitchen chair. Juliette was five and wandered over to the stove and started asked a million questions about what was for breakfast and Hallie gave up watching her lips.

Jenna was the eldest and thirty. She was tall and blonde with tan skin and moss eyes like Hallie's and from what Hallie could see from pictures and home videos, the most like their mother. She just had that look in her eyes. That look which Hallie didn't know any other way to describe as _home_. Jenna was the mother of two, Juliette and Austin and the wife of Matthew Lloyd, a Muggle that knew absolutely nothing about their family but was decent enough. She watched over all of them and generally did the cooking, because their dad shouldn't be allowed near a stove.

Angela was twenty-eight and didn't come around much. She was always off doing who-knew what, coming home every few months with a new tattoo and a new boyfriend and by the time she left again they'd be broken up and she'd be angry at the world and swearing off guys. And then she'd repeat the cycle.

Jon was twenty-six and just ended his marriage with this angel-faced demon of a woman, though her dad said Hallie was just biased because she'd automatically assume that of anyone who made Jon cry like that. But what was she supposed to think when her sister-in-law cheats on her brother with one of Angela's boyfriends? She was a demon wearing an angel's face and broke her big brother's heart and she never wanted Jon to cry his baby blue eyes out like that again. When Jon cries she feels a bit of the world die, if she's honest.

Sophia and Lucy were only a year apart, standing at twenty-four and twenty-three. Sophia was a know-it-all in trends and everything worth knowing in the world today, which apparently didn't include anything they learned in school, like history or math. But ask her what band was major or who was dating who on their favorite soap operas and she'd know. Actually she was normally the only one who knew where Angela was half the time.  
Lucy was different. She had the face of what Hallie deemed Bambi, from that Disney movie with this auburn-chestnut hair color and she always said 'please' and 'thank-you' and was the sweetest thing Hallie ever laid eyes on.

Ben was nineteen and the spitting image of their dad, all tan skin and dark gold hair with blue eyes and broad shoulders. Ben and their brother Sam, who was seventeen, got along extremely well. Sam was slim and short with tan skinned and dark dirty gold with these really intense blue eyes like he was seeing into your soul and they both had dimples like Hallie when they smiled. Ben had this big laugh that Hallie could feel vibrate throughout the house no matter what room he was in and always made her laugh and Sam had a laugh that made her grin like made because he'd always cover his mouth and his eyes would crinkle at the corners and they'd just shine.

Sam slumped into the room, rubbing his eyes and stretching his mouth big in a yawn. He was practically devoured in a big maroon t-shirt and sweatpants with a grey beenie covering his head. He sunk into a chair and rested his chin on the table. Ben watched him carefully and flicked him in the forehead.

_Are those my clothes? _

Sam shrugged, peering calmly at him before twitching his glance over to Hallie.

_She's wearing mine. _

Hallie stuck out her tongue and flicked her hands dismissively.

_Looks better on me. _

__Sam closed his eyes and nuzzled into his arms and heaved a sigh that seemed to deflate his entire being. Ben looked about ready to say something and Hallie tipped her gaze his way to see but he whipped his head around and their dad came to the table, plates balanced precariously on his arms and Ben started salivating at the sight of his eggs.

Sophia turned to face the table and Hallie glanced at her, catching some words from her perfectly glossed lips, but missed most of them. Sophia, as Hallie learned, was a fast talker and it was sometimes hard to read her lips and she would get so caught up in her conversations she sometimes forgot that her little sister was deaf.

Two seats at the table were missing, one for Angela and one for their grandmother. Three seats if you counted the one at the head, their mother's seat. Hallie had never once had the pleasure of seeing that seat filled.

Their dad sat down in his seat, spared a lingering glance at their mom's chair like he always did and started passing plates around. It wasn't even that she didn't enjoy family breakfasts, really, she loved them. Her family was so big and her siblings were so much older and had their own lives, though they made sure to drop by regularly considering their dad couldn't cook and they were convinced their grandmother was senile anyways and someone had to make sure the house didn't burn down.

It was just that they didn't happen often. Which meant something had brought them all here. She couldn't imagine what, chewing on her chocolate chip pancake, she tried to think of theories. Had someone died? It wasn't grandmother, she lived at home with them so Hallie would know, she was just refusing to get up before eleven, as always. Had some horrible accident happened? If something had happened, why was everyone smiling? Why weren't they telling her?

She picked up her fork and chimed it on her plate, feeling the vibrations through the dish. Their heads jerked in her direction and she flexed her fingers.

_What's going on? __  
_

__Jenna glanced at their dad who pursed his lips, a calculating look in his eyes.

_I don't know. _

__Hallie huffed and rolled her eyes, reclining in her chair.

_That's a load of shit and you know it. _

__Ben looked at Sam and they shared a glance before Sam nodded.

_I agree. Why the meeting? _

__Hallie frowned and watched her siblings. So none of them knew, her father had called the Fell Family Meeting. It had to be big then.

_I didn't call this. I just called all of you. _

__Now it was confusing and Hallie could feel a headache coming on. Who called the meeting then? And why?

It was a good thing she didn't actually throw her questions out there, because a second later the front door opened and none other than dear Angela stood in the doorway of the kitchen; brown hair cut short like a pixie, jeans ripped at the knees with black bulky boots and a low shirt. Newspaper in hand.

Hallie recognized the type of paper, of course she did. Her father might be a Muggle, but he knew of his wife's blood. Her mother had been a pure-blood witch from a prominent Wizarding family back in England, old money, and had become a reporter. She met their dad in a tavern. They all went to wizarding school; granted here in America and not England like their mother, but they had the moving-picture papers too.

Jenna flipped around in her chair and her eyes widened as she appraised her younger sister. Her hands stayed seated at the table but Hallie could see _Angela_ formed on her lips.

Angela held up the paper and her face the most serious Hallie had ever seen it. She focused her eyes on the headline and felt her stomach drop.

_England Headmaster claims You-Know-Who Returns From the Dead? _

__Some American Newspaper was reporting that...that the Dark Lord was back? As in from the dead? No, that wasn't right, she remembered Ben telling her something about him not dying, not finding a proper body or something...

The news was still unsettling. She didn't know whether it was true, who this Headmaster was or if he knew what shit he was stirring up, but either way, there was the possibility that the man who was responsible for her, for her mother's brutal murder, was back in action. It had never once been so silent in the Fell household as it was that moment.


End file.
